Purdue named the most recognized public university in U.S., No. 6 overall in Global University Visibility rankings

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Purdue University continues as the most recognized public university in the nation, while climbing to the position as No. 6 overall in the world in the 2025-26 Global University Visibility (GUV) rankings.

Purdue was No. 4 among all U.S. universities, trailing behind only Harvard, MIT and Stanford, in the latest rankings by American Caldwell, a Washington, D.C.-based higher education market research firm.

“This quantitative summary is yet another reflection of the excellence at scale in the work each day by Purdue students, faculty and staff,” said Purdue President Mung Chiang. “It is also another manifestation of the creativity and dedication of the marketing and communications teams at our university.”

Overall, Purdue outperformed major institutions such as Cornell University, Columbia University, University of Cambridge, Yale University, University of Michigan, University of São Paulo in Brazil and University of Chicago. Purdue also was the top-ranked university in the Big Ten and outranked every other Indiana university by at least 70 positions overall.

“Purdue’s rise to No. 6 globally while remaining America’s most visible public university reinforces the exceptional value of a Purdue degree,” said Chief Marketing Officer Kelly Hiller. “This recognition reflects more than 150 years of Boilermakers making real impact from Indiana communities to the world stage, fulfilling our land-grant mission through innovation that transforms lives locally, drives economic growth statewide and solves global challenges. When the world thinks transformative education and groundbreaking research, they think Purdue.”

Driving Purdue’s climb of three spots in the rankings to remain among the top 10 of the world’s most recognizable universities in the GUV survey:

• Visibility score: 21.8 million, up 9% from last year
• Website visitors: 12.9 million
• News mentions: 10,636 (coverage in newspapers, TV and radio the past 12 months)
• Public interest: 344,000 (monthly Google searches)
• Social media followers: 1.2 million, up 7% from last year (followers across Instagram, X, Facebook and LinkedIn)

“We’re thrilled to celebrate how this higher visibility can translate into attracting top students, expanding funding opportunities, recruiting leading faculty and facilitating deeper partnerships,” said Julie Rosa, vice president for communications. “Telling the compelling stories of amazing Purdue people and how they impact the world continues to be a true honor for our teams.”

The GUV ranking employs an innovative first-of-its-kind methodology to score university brand strength in a given year by measuring how effectively each institution communicates its story to the world. The calculation for the brand visibility score is based on those four primary performance indicators, each weighted at different levels, as well as web references, online footprint and video views. GUV’s 12-month ranking period ran from July 2024 to June 2025.

GUV said the news data for its visibility rankings is collected from Jan. 1, 2024, to Jan. 1, 2025. The website visitors and public interest searches are from a typical average month in the first quarter of 2025, while the social media figure is a cumulative total.

About Purdue University 

Purdue University is a public research institution demonstrating excellence at scale. Ranked among top 10 public universities and with two colleges in the top four in the United States, Purdue discovers and disseminates knowledge with a quality and at a scale second to none. More than 105,000 students study at Purdue across modalities and locations, including nearly 50,000 in person on the West Lafayette campus. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue’s main campus has frozen tuition 14 years in a row. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap — including its first comprehensive urban campus in Indianapolis, the new Mitchell E. Daniels, Jr. School of Business, and Purdue Computes — at https://www.purdue.edu/president/strategic-initiatives.